


So Dawn Goes Down to Day

by nonisland



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (which ship? whichever you want. or none.), Author's headcanon, Backstory, Childhood Friends, Gen, Gen or Pre-Ship, Implied/Referenced Harm to Children, Pre-Canon, Uninformed Narrator, fluff and then angst, i feel about the timeline the way constance von nuvelle feels about the sun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25876180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland
Summary: Before Edelgard left, Ferdinand had counted her and Hubert as his closest friends.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir & Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35





	So Dawn Goes Down to Day

**Author's Note:**

> You ever think about how Silver Snow and a few other bits strongly imply that Ferdinand had once been much closer to Hubert and presumably therefore Edelgard than any of the rest of the Eagles were, and also about how Edelgard has massive holes in her memory after *gestures at the slithers* All That? I think about it. I think about it a lot.
> 
> Title from Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Scott looked this over for me but if I have _still_ screwed up the timeline blame me, not him; he corrected me twice already and that is more of a burden than any one human should have to bear.
> 
> * * *

Ferdinand was six years old when he met Edelgard von Hresvelg. She had been tiny, but not in the least possible to overlook—rather she was a creation of pure will honed down to the keenest of edges, even then.

He remembers it quite distinctly.

His father had said something along the lines of, “There is no need for you to bother me while I work. Run and play with some of the other children. Ionius has a girl about your age.”

Ferdinand had not been entirely thrilled with the prospect of _a girl about your age_ —girls wore dresses which they were not supposed to get muddy or torn, and there was always such a _lot_ of dress that they could do nothing interesting without risking one or the other. But still, when his father said not to bother him, that meant it was no use arguing.

But Edelgard—

Edelgard had been wearing a fine gown, something softly amethyst that matched her eyes, with a plain silver circlet over her unbound hair. The gown had had ruffles, and, even more ominously, Hubert von Vestra had been standing quietly behind her, already favoring all-black attire but much shorter then.

Ferdinand had met him a time or two already, even then, while their fathers discussed some sort of business in the Aegir study. Hubert _never_ wanted to play knights and castles, or go to the seaward wall and watch the ships in the harbor below, or do _anything_ interesting. Ferdinand had bowed politely—and deeply! just as he had been taught was appropriate!—and expected an afternoon of _sitting_.

“Duke Aegir’s son,” Hubert had added softly over Edelgard’s shoulder after Ferdinand had introduced himself.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Ferdinand,” Edelgard had said, voice startlingly clear for someone as small and ruffly as she was. Ferdinand thinks he remembers her voice most vividly from that meeting, but it might be the fierceness of her eyes above her pretty gown.

Or it might have been that the next thing she had said was, “Do you like towers?”

“Towers?”

“I’m not supposed to go up to the old watchtower _alone_ ,” she had explained, while Hubert grimaced behind her, “but if you go all the way up to the very top you can see the whole palace complex at once. Everything that’s happening. You can see _all_ of it.”

Edelgard had feared nothing: not mud nor torn skirts, nor dust, nor heights—Ferdinand had not been ill-mannered enough to say anything to Hubert, but that much was obvious, especially since Edelgard would report her observations from the tower window solemnly to him—nor ghosts, when they found a hallway that was rumored to be haunted. She had also been entirely willing to play knights and castles, and even managed to persuade Hubert to join in on occasion. Ferdinand had made the mistake of suggesting she was too small to be a knight once, and not again.

Whenever his family was in Enbarr, which became much less often than he preferred, Ferdinand found Edelgard and Hubert. They got too old for knights and castles, and the other two picked up some Almyran board game of strategy that bored Ferdinand to tears, but Edelgard made sure he had the run of the palace library, and there were worse things than a thrilling tome of military history read in a comfortable chair in the company of his friends.

Then—well, then. There had been the Insurrection, and Edelgard had vanished. Ferdinand had tried to ask Hubert about it—he had meant to ask if Hubert was all right, once he knew what had happened, because if _Ferdinand_ felt right away that the entire city of Enbarr was dimmer without Edelgard then Hubert must feel as if the lights all across the city had been blown out at once—and Hubert had given him the cut direct, no less stinging for the fact that it had happened in an otherwise-deserted hallway with none to see it.

It has been years since Hubert has offered him more than the iciest of courtesies.

But Edelgard is _back_ now, with her hair gone snow-white like something out of a fairy tale but the set of her shoulders as determined as ever, and still with the same air of taking up more space than she actually does. She is wearing sophisticated violet tonight—a mistake, Ferdinand thinks, since the color reflects up into her face and makes the shadows under her cheekbones darker and her eyes appear bruised with exhaustion—but a solitary ruffle has still crept out of some dressmaker’s cabinet and onto her hem. Her circlet is gold now, but that shockingly pale hair still spills loosely out from under it, brushing against her shoulders before it falls. She is gloved from fingertip to biceps, the tops of the gloves hidden by the drape of her sleeves.

Hubert is a shadow behind her again, gawky with his sudden new height but drawing the eye nevertheless. His attention on Edelgard is a tangible thing—it has as much weight and solidity and shine as a full suit of armor. They are striking together in a way they had not been before and which Ferdinand is disinclined to examine too closely right now.

“Edelgard!” Ferdinand exclaims, when the receiving line finally, finally, brings him to the front (it has been some half a dozen people, but he is impatient).

She blinks at him. Her eyes are the same amethyst they have always been, but Ferdinand sees now that it is not the gown making her look tired. The circles beneath her eyes are new. So, too, is the fine line that appears between her pale brows as she looks at him.

“I am so glad to see you again,” he says, wondering at her silence.

Oh, Edelgard could be _quiet_ , but not usually like this. He had known her quiet in the stables, as she and Hubert rolled their eyes affectionately when he was introducing them to his new horse or watching almost without breathing when they had discovered a litter of kittens. He had known her quiet over that Almyran game, twisting her hair around her finger in thought before she moved a piece and grinned triumphantly at Hubert. He had known her quiet on summer afternoons when the air pressed down on Enbarr like a wool blanket soaked in bathwater and the three of them fled to the wine cellars.

The line between Edelgard’s brows melts away. “You’re Duke Aegir’s eldest, aren’t you?” she says.

Ferdinand is robbed of the power of speech for a moment.

Hubert’s hand hovers protectively over Edelgard’s arm. He has taken to wearing gloves as well; his are white, stark against the delicate lavender she wears.

“I believe we’ve met a few times before,” Edelgard continues, politely, coolly, completely without guile. Hubert returns his hand to his side. “It’s nice to see you again as well.”

It would be wholly and entirely unbefitting the dignity of a noble to cry, so Ferdinand does _not_ , in spite of the hot prickling at the corners of his eyes. It is true he had not lived in Enbarr as she and Hubert did, and of course, in the grand scheme of events, he had spent little enough time with her, and she _had_ been gone for several years.

Even more to the point, and the real reason he cannot give vent to his feelings, is that there had never been any kind of agreement of friendship, no pact or bond that she has broken. Those weeks out of every year in Enbarr that had been shining points in Ferdinand’s rather less than shining youth had clearly been insignificant to her, and that is entirely her right, just as it was entirely her right to leave without a word and never write and never—well. It hardly matters.

If she has forgotten him so completely she clearly has no trust in or reliance on him as her future prime minister, which must have been his father’s hope in guiding their meeting all those years ago, but there have been Hresvelg emperors for a thousand years, and Ferdinand will hardly be the first one to have to prove his worth. It will be tedious, but he has never flinched from hard work before and he does not intend to start now.

“My name,” he says, clearly and precisely, looking down at her as unflinchingly as he can—and feeling not at all as if _down_ is where he looks—“is Ferdinand von Aegir.”


End file.
